Microsoft Back At Top Spot, Overtakes As Apple Most Valuable Listed Firm

Microsoft has been able to surpass Apple and regain the top spot to become the most valuable listed company in the world after it ended Friday with a market value of more than $851 billion (£667 billion).

It is the first time that Microsoft has held the top spot in a period of 15 years. It also rounds off a disappointing November for Apple. At the market’s close, the value of the iPhone maker was $847 billion.

The share price of Microsoft increased to $110.89. It was able to gain 0.6 percent during Friday’s session, while the share price of Apple dropped further by 0.5 percent to $178.60.

In recent weeks, the shares of Apple have fallen and fallen by nearly 25 percent since October with the tech industry toiling.

Both companies continue to be well below the $1 trillion milestones that both Amazon and Apple was able to hit earlier in the year.

Apple (APPL) first passed Microsoft to become the most valuable firm in the world way back in 2010, as its consumer hardware business flourished while that of Microsoft’s floundered. Currently, Microsoft is thriving largely because of concentrating not on consumers, but enterprise customers.

In the past years, the cloud services unit of Microsoft has driven the growth of the firm and sells to other businesses. Meanwhile, Apple is reliant on consumer spending and there is some concern for investors of a declining demand for the tech giant’s new smart phones.

Under Satya Nadella, the chief executive officer of Microsoft, the company has made a years-long bet on cloud computing. This has positioned the firm as one of the two dominant players — along with Amazon — in a fast-growing market and drove the company to its first $100 billion sales year.

Meanwhile, Apple has seen its stock fall amid the concerns about the sagging demand for the new lineup of expensive iPhones and its decision to stop disclosing the unit sales for smartphones — not to mention a report that was released earlier this week that Donald Trump, the President of the United States of America, is open to imposing tariffs on the iPhone.

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